Unmountable DVDs

[Nils Kassube]

Phil wrote:
> A batch of DVDs were formatted using K3B so that they could be reused.
> Unfortunately, they are now unmountable. I know this to be the case
> from my own past experience with K3B, no mater if "format" or "quick
> format" is selected the result is the same, a disc that is
> unmountable.

> Apparently buying a copy of Windows 7 or 8 is not an option. So is
> there an easy GUI for formatting or erasing discs that won't leave
> them unmountable? I've looked at "udftools" but it's use is rather
> complex.

After some experiments with k3b and erasing DVD+RW (see other mails in
this thread), I tried to use the udftools you mentioned. IMHO it isn't
complex to use. Instead it is one of the easy to use tools. But as
always, YMMV. These are the steps to format a DVD+RW with UDF:

- Start konsole from the K-menu.
- Insert the DVDRW and wait until the device notifier pops up for the
  DVDRW.
- Type this command:

mkudffs mkudffs --media-type=dvd /dev/sr0

- Wait until the command prompt returns.
- Eject the medium and reinsert it - now it should be mountable.

There seems to be a GUI which is supposed to do that for you [1], but it
looks like you must compile it from the source code which is definitely
more complicated than using mkudffs.


Nils

[1] <http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Filesystems/Create-UDF-Filesystem-37040.shtml>